Sam Anscombe

Duke has consistently released their first decisions before the end of January. Over the last five years, UC Berkeley has consistently released their first decisions on Feb 2 or Feb 3, and only once on Feb 5 in 2013.

I have an update on the Yale rejection. On the blog, the person who posted the rejection commented, "I mistakenly entered Philosophy in The Grad Cafe survey although I had been rejected from the German department. I was unable to change my mistake. Sorry!"

If anyone wants to message me privately (and anonymously) to confirm the Yale rejection, feel free.

This is on the blog, but remember that the predictions are the mean of the last five (or less) initial notificaton dates. It is by no means a perfect science, especially since DGAs switch sometimes and might do things differently. Some predictions are calculated based on four or five very different dates and might therefore be less reliable, while others are remarkably consistent with initial notification dates (like Berkeley, off the top of my head). But you can also see that last year, many of Jac's predictions were on the nose. All of this is not to undermine the calculations or the peace of mind the predictions give us (I'm in the same boat as all of you!), but it is important to keep this in mind.

I third this.

Looks like there was an acceptance to Purdue yesterday as well, and much earlier than expected! Congratulations. The blog has been updated to reflect this. As others have suggested, I would second the idea that there ought to be individual threads for Acceptances/Rejections/Waitlists as more decisions start coming out.

Good catch!

I saw that, but in past years, people have posted false information on the survey so I am following Jac's approach. Last year, a Princeton decision was posted remarkably early and it turned out to be false (I believe this was confirmed by someone calling the department). I'm hoping that the person who received the email can claim it and/or confirm it via PM before I post on the philosophy admissions blog.

Does anyone want to message me to claim/confirm this before I post on the blog? I hope it is real—congratulations to whoever received it (and to all of the others who have been accepted so far!).

The Philosophy Admissions blog was started in 2014 by Ian Faircloud—I'm not sure whether something like that exists for Computer Science. If you wanted to start a similar blog, I think some of the data used for predictions was originally gathered from the TGC Survey, which shows decision notifications from many different fields. The dates are based on user submissions, so the dates might vary in reliability.

Hey Swann, That was an error. My mistake—thanks for pointing that out. It now says that Jan 27 is the prediction for the Jan 7 deadline. The reason I specify the deadline at all is because someone messaged me with information and predictions about UIC. There is a second deadline on Feb 1, which is the deadline for the TAship (whereas Jan 7 is the deadline for consideration of fellowship). The prediction for the first deadline is Jan 27, and the prediction for the second deadline is Feb 23.

Yes, I had similar thoughts while calculating predictions. When there is one release date on February 14 in 2015 and one on March 14 in 2016, I can make a prediction of February 28 or March 1 for this cycle, but who knows how accurate that will be? I imagine that release dates vary based on the department and also on the current DGS. A new DGS could come in who wants to move things along much quicker than his predecessors, and this too could (and probably does) complicate predictions.

Uploaded. As with the other newer additions the the blog, the results are going to be based on the announcements on the TGC Survey. I predicted March 1 based on the last three years.

Feel free to message me! I'm happy to take into account any data you have as well as any predictions you would like me to add. You can email philosophyadmissionsblog at gmail dot com.

Hi all, Last admissions cycle, you might have seen Jac Barcan around offering advice and predictions for the 2016 season. For the Fall 2017 cycle, I will be taking over the blog. I posted my predictions on the blog today. Each prediction is based on an average of the last ~5 release dates. I follow the methodology of my forebearers by occasionally omitting outliers or adjusting the average to fit patterns (e.g., if a university always releases decisions on a Friday but the average date falls on a Saturday, I round the average to the nearest Friday). Although some schools are based on five years worth of data, some are based on only one or two data points. I followed Jac's lead by adding more unranked programs to the list (most notably, MSU, SUNY Binghamton, and SUNY Buffalo). My data points are gathered from the TGC survey, but I do not know how accurate all of the dates are. Hopefully down the line, the accuracy of our predictions will improve. I am always open to suggestions. You can view the blog at philosophyadmissions.wordpress.com Once admissions notifications start to come out, I will be active on here and on the blog. I will check TGC for updates and update the blog accordingly at least once per day. If you have any tips you would like to contribute to the blog but do not want to post on TGC, please feel free to contact me on here or by email at philosophyadmissionsblog at gmail dot com. Good luck with the rest of your applications. Yours, Sam